


ancient rome was an outlier and should not have been counted

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: just let them REST alex [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Knives, My First Work in This Fandom, One Shot, Stabbing, Stream of Consciousness, bit of a mess really, deus ex ARTEMIS baby, guess who just finished ancient rome 4 and is REAL SAD, technically grizzop doesn't stay dead so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 21:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21004685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: grizzop dies. sasha screams. artemis intervenes.





	ancient rome was an outlier and should not have been counted

**Author's Note:**

> i miss him :'''''''''''''''''''(

They’re surrounded on all sides by men with spears, and Sasha’s arms are slick with blood and her hands _ aren’t _ shaking, because she’s not an _ amateur_, but she can feel them wanting to, and Grizzop has a hole through him made by a spear that went through her, and she can hear the sounds of a massacre behind her, in front of her, and she thinks, _ Cicero is an idiot _ and she thinks, _ I need a nap _ and she doesn’t think about the dread pooling in the back of her mind or the blood dripping down her arms, neck, chest, dripping, _ dripping_.

Grizzop raises his bow and shoots, once, twice, three times- at the fleeing captain. Sasha stares at him, thinks _ what are you doing, the men with spears are right here! _ but he’s smiling with satisfaction and the captain is falling, and then-

and then-

The men lunge. One spear, two, three, (one shot, two, three) break through him. Grizzop doesn’t gasp, doesn’t scream, doesn’t react audibly at all because there are _ three spears through him _ but his big red eyes are even bigger in shock and Sasha knows what a dead person looks like, has seen so many staring up at her from the ground, saw one in the mirror for weeks, and she’s looking at one now, next to her, surrounded by spears, and she’s _ screaming _ because it’s happened again and she had never thought it wouldn’t, she’s not an _ amateur_, she worked for _ Barrett_, but- but-

She sees the men look at her, sees them lean forward, knows what’s about to happen, feels the blood drip down her arms, readies her knives because Grizzop is dead but she _ isn’t _ not _ yet _ and then-

There’s a flash of light, a deep, forest green, and Sasha smells pine and wood and wet fur, and suddenly the light isn’t green but pale white like the moon and it feels like seconds and two thousand years all at once, she isn’t stretched, or rent apart, but she feels young and old and new and dead all at once and then she’s not in the cave anymore. (She thinks she saw a face, a woman’s face, enormous and close, smiling at her with a hunter’s smile but she can’t, she’s not sure, the smell of pine is so strong-)

She can still smell the blood, the death, the screams are ringing in her ears but she catches Grizzop’s body and pulls out a healing potion, not praying but knowing that she is _ fast _ and if she can just _ do this _ and she _ can _ then maybe- she was dead and alive and her organs were in jars and she was alive and maybe, maybe, if that was Artemis, maybe? It’s not quite hope because hope is for people who didn’t grow up working for Barrett, who didn’t cut off their own finger to escape what they were doing, but curiosity, maybe?

She registers the screams and gasps and cries around her, itches for her knives, needs to protect herself, Grizzop, but he’s still got three spears in him and Sasha realizes she’s stopped screaming but she is crying, silently, and the healing potion is empty.

Grizzop isn’t moving but she looks at his eyes thinks that maybe, they look brighter, less glassy and dead, and his skin is still grey but not zombie-grey and she rifles through his pockets until she finds another healing potion. She shoves it down his throat and then there’s a hand on her arm and her daggers are out and she’s whirling, but it’s not a red-armored figure but a _ pink _ one.

An orc who is looking at her with big, surprised eyes, and saying “_Sasha? What happened- oh my Gods, Sasha-” _ and Sasha says, “_heal him_.” And Azu does. And Sasha throat itches and she knows it’s because of the screaming she’d just been doing a minute ago, two thousand years ago.

  


And then Azu heals her, and then Sasha sitting on a chair, and Hamid and Azu and Einstein are staring at her, and they’re all asking her questions, what happened, are you okay, where did you go, do you know what’s happened, and Sasha wants to answer but she’s been unconscious four times in the last week and her arms aren’t bleeding anymore but she can feel the blood itching on them, and her daggers are covered in blood, and she was in Rome and Eldarion’s dead and sacrificed herself for _ her _ but that doesn’t make any _ sense _ and the spears aren’t in Grizzop any more, are piled on the floor, and Grizzop is breathing slowly but steadily on a cot and Sasha just- can’t.

Finally, they leave her alone. Hamid tearfully hugs her, and Sasha allows it, standing stiff but still and giving him a pat on the back and trying to hold onto the receding numbness with bloody fingertips because she can feel the weight of everything coming like an avalanche but she _ can’t _ , not yet, she’s not in Rome anymore but it’s different, now, everyone is nervous and Einstein looks wrong, right, like he’s learnt how to survive but he’s a _ professor_, and they’re not in Damascus but Cairo, she has to handle it (she’s not handling it, she wants to sit on the roof in Paris with the Gargoyles, wants to throw stones at rich people, wants to- to-)

  


Sasha sleeps, eventually. Badly and stiffly and when she wakes up she still feels awful, and it’s almost familiar, and she checks her blankets for bloodstains before she remembers, she’s un-undeaded, right. She glances over at Grizzop.

They’ve taken off his armor, laid it up in a bloody, shredded pile on the floor next to his bed, and she can see the scars on his chest. They’re splotchy and spiky, sort like her burns but sharper and rounder and redder, and she stares and stares at them until someone knocks on the door.

Azu lets herself in, but beams as soon as she realizes Sasha is awake. “Good morning Sasha!” she says, handing out a bottle. It’s a healing potion.

“You are mostly healed, but I thought it might help,” Azu says, and Sasha downs the potion. She does feel better, and takes out her knives. She needs to clean them, and ideally sharpen them too, but that can wait for a little bit.

Azu leans over Grizzop’s bedside and starts praying quietly. There’s a pink light, and it goes on for a while, but soon enough he’s sitting up, disoriented, reaching for his bow, and Sasha feels something settle in her chest. He’s started to argue with Azu about getting out of bed, already vibrating with energy, and he looks. Alive. Not dead.


End file.
